So what’s a good foundation for a great YouTube video? There are three elements.

Foundation element 1: have a good topic

There is a bit of a debate on what exactly makes a good topic, but here are three characteristics of what I think is a good topic for a great YouTube video.

It’s based off Youtube search.

YouTube is a giant search engine; in order for your video to be seen, it has to be about stuff that people are searching for.

The easiest way to ensure that you have a good topic is to go to the YouTube search bar and search for keywords that you think people would be interested in.

What you’ll see is that the YouTube search bar will auto-complete with different types of searches. Each of these searches is a possible YouTube video title.

It’s been through the Google Keyword Planner

If you go to the Google Keyword Planner and type in your YouTube search query, it will give you a list of keywords based off how many searches per month and the competition for that search term.

You want to grab supplementary keywords that have two characteristics:

High volume. You don’t want to pick a keyword that has very low search volume. So what’s a good search volume? I’d recommend at least 1000 searches.

Medium or low competition. You don’t want to have a keyword with high competition because your video is just not going to be seen.

It’s in your topic of expertise

Your topic should be one that you are passionate about, know a lot about, and are comfortable/eager to teach to other people. If it doesn’t satisfy these three things, don’t make a YouTube video. Even if it has good search and keywords, if you aren’t passionate about the topic, your video will be bad right out the gate.

So what’s a good structure for a YouTube video? In my opinion, a good structure has three elements.

Strong Introduction

When you start a YouTube video, introduce yourself because people might not know who you are. This is because they’re either discovering your video through search or through social media.

Make sure that your intro is not too long so that people don’t get bored and they go away. Preferably your intro should be no more than 30 seconds long. Maybe make it 15 seconds to be on the safe side.

Explanation of your topic

For the meat of the video, you want to have the video broken up into different parts. This does two things:

the video’s easy to follow

the video’s easy for you to shoot because you don’t have to shoot the whole video all at once. Instead, you can shoot part by part.

Call to action (CTA)

What’s a good call to action? A good call to action has two parts:

It encourages people to engage with you. In other words, you want people to like/comment on the video or subscribe to your YouTube channel.

It drives them away from YouTube. Your goal should be either your website or your lead magnet. This lets you start taking viewers and turning them into true fans.

Foundation element 3: have good footage

The third element of a right foundation is having good footage. Here are some tips for when you’re shooting your YouTube video.

Have good lighting

The way you have good lighting is always make sure when you’re recording your YouTube videos that you have the light in front of you. Otherwise your face is going to be in the shadows.

Have good audio

There are two ways to have good audio.

The first and probably the most practical one is to try and record your YouTube videos in a quiet environmentwithout a lot of background noise.

The second way you can have good audio is to use an external mic. There are lots of different options ranging from: